Balearic identity and richness of languages
The question of Balearic identity is a subject rich in debate, in the same way as in Catalonia or the Basque Country. It is in fact strongly linked to language. Since the Balearic Islands became an autonomous community, Catalan has been the official language of the archipelago. Accompanied by Castilian (Spanish), it is, in fact, a co-officiality, according to the terms used in the legal texts. The majority of the islanders claim to understand Catalan, but approximately 30% do not speak it. In reality, the use of Catalan is limited to political institutions. Public schools are supposed to teach in both languages from kindergarten onwards, which would facilitate a professional insertion in Catalonia, or a continuation of university studies on the mainland. But again, the reality is different: in schools, Castilian is the majority language in the classroom, and local dialects (Ibicenco in Ibiza) are mainly spoken in the playground. The latter have even become symbols of nationalism for the older generation.
However, this official model has been threatened since 2013 by the reform of the education system of the government of José Ramón Bauzá (PP), which proposes a trilingual Catalan-Castilian-English system, reducing the hours of Catalan in favor of English. Despite its annulment by the Supreme Court in 2014, this reform has been the subject of much debate. Currently, with the Socialist Party in government since June 2015, tempers have calmed and the two languages are expected to regain a balance in schools. As a result of highly developed tourism, some foreign languages (English, German, Italian and French) are spoken quite fluently in some areas of Ibiza (and Mallorca). However, on a Balearic scale, Catalan is still the most widely spoken language (especially in Menorca and Formentera): 73% of the population knows how to speak it and almost 90% understands it, making Catalan a true linguistic pillar. Despite this attachment to a traditional identity cradled by age-old customs and traditions, the population has changed significantly in recent years. Thus, Ibiza is particularly cosmopolitan, with a share of 7% of the total population of foreign residents (this share reaches 1/3 of the population of Formentera!).
To this foreign population permanently installed on the island, we must add a good number of emigrants coming to work on the island during the summer season. In 2009, the Balearic Islands are listed as the autonomous community in Spain with the highest percentage of foreigners, with more than 20% of immigrants. The inhabitants of Ibiza distinguish between locals and forasters (foreigners): this adjective refers to Spanish families from the peninsula. Strangely enough, tourists are better accepted than Spanish immigrants: a Madrilenian, even one who has been living on Ibiza for more than ten years, will always remain a foraster . Among the main nationalities represented on the island, Italy is in first place (about 5,000 people), followed by Morocco, Germany, France and the British. Since 2010, Ibiza has seen a sharp drop in immigration, a direct consequence of the crisis. A trend that has been reversed in 2017 with an increase of 33% in the number of foreign immigrants.
Brief history of the hippy movement in Ibiza and Formentera
If Ibiza has acquired an international reputation with the arrival in large numbers of hippies in the 1960s, the island already enjoyed a reputation since the 1930s as a sanctuary of the sweet life. Indeed, many avant-garde European intellectuals and artists, forced to flee authoritarian regimes (the Spanish Civil War in particular), found refuge on the white island. After the Second World War, the world was gradually rebuilt and creativity and freedom became more important, so that many artists already accustomed to the island began to flock again, soon joined by young Europeans and Americans, followers of the emerging hippie movement. For these souls in love with freedom and peace, with a healthy relationship with nature, Ibiza - but also its small neighbor Formentera - offers all the ingredients of happiness, so much so that hippie communities are quickly formed from the beginning of the 1960s, mainly in the rural areas of the center of the island.
If San Francisco is considered the cradle of the movement, London and Amsterdam, because of their cosmopolitan and bohemian atmosphere, are also important centers of this emerging culture. Nepal and India, considered suitable for the practice of meditation, are also top destinations. What Ibiza offers to hippies is a direct and simple contact with nature, a mild climate, but also a territory still spared from mass tourism. The inhabitants of the island received this new population with curiosity and kindness, calling them "peluts" ("hairy" in Catalan), because of their shaggy hair, and the coexistence was rather good. During this golden age of the hippies in Ibiza (1965-1975), thinkers, artists, idealists and sweet dreamers operating their return to the earth contribute to popularize the island and soon tourism begins to gain ground, diluting little by little this authentic hippie spirit of the first hour...
However, today you can still get a glimpse of what that time was like by visiting the Sunday market in Sant Joan, whose artisan stalls are perhaps the most authentic on the island. The small cove of Atlantis or Punta Galera are also spots that still preserve the psychedelic magic of the 1960s. Also worth seeing is the gathering of drummers on the beach of Benirràs, every Sunday in the summer, at dusk. In 2016, a bronze sculpture of a hippie and his child (inspired by a famous photograph of the time) was inaugurated in the Marina d'Eivissa, as a tribute to this fundamental episode in the history and culture of Ibiza.
